Hello,
It’s me, Steve from Seoul, South Korea! I have been living in South Korea for the past four years, but have lived also almost 4 years in Dresden (Germany) before that, and originally hail from southern New Jersey (USA)! I’ve been interested in world cultures and languages since 10/11 years old since a family trip to Walt Disney World, where I fell in love with the EPCOT “World Showcase”, and have been smitten ever since! I started out with a huge interest in Europe (mainly Germanic and Slavic languages) but since college have branched out to Turkish and Asian languages much more. Other hobbies and topics I enjoy discussing include (but not limited to) birding/bird-watching (nature in general), anything science-related (including data science which I’ve been dipping my toes into recently), and world folk music, which has highly inspired my polyglot journey thus far (used to play piano-accordion and Highland bagpipes. Big fan of Bulgarian and Georgian Polyphonic choirs (and dancing), Korean traditional opera (판소리/pansori), and Mongolian or Tuvan throat singing (learned a little when I lived in Germany with an Indian pal after we had just attended an amazing concert by Huun-Huur-Tu…but I just don’t have Richard’s vocal skills I guess . Wenn es irgendwelche Bayern-Fans gibt (nicht Fan der Fußballmannschaft, sondern der Bairische Kultur), kann ich auch ein bisschen Schuhplattler tanzen!]. I joined my first polyglot event last year at the Polyglot Conference in (thankfully very nearby) Fukuoka, and look forward to attending this year’s event and future ones with this amazing growing community!
My native or near-native languages: English
My C1/C2 languages: Korean
My B1/B2 languages: German, Spanish (Latin American)
My A1/A2 languages: Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Japanese, Mandarin, Malay, Swahili
I also want to learn or have started to learn: Georgian, Greek, Romanian, Swiss German, Irish, Welsh, Quechua, Nahuatl, Twi, Maori, Hawaiian, etc. lol
Looking forward to talking with you all and sharing our love of languages!